Climate Change Initiatives

The District Department of Transportation (DDOT) is taking additional steps in promoting environmentally sustainability in its daily operations and has completed two key climate change initiatives: the Greenhouse Gas Emissions Inventory and the Climate Change Adaptation Plan.

DDOT has a history of promoting environmentally responsible behavior and has now inventoried the greenhouse gas emissions from the agency’s facilities and operations. Greenhouse gas emissions are considered contributor to the cause of climate change and extreme weather events. The DDOT Greenhouse Gas Emissions Inventory is a first step in accounting for, monitoring, and reducing DDOT’s GHG emissions. Overall, the inventory showed that, as a result of environmental policies and energy saving initiatives that are already in place and without any new initiatives, DDOT is already on its way to reducing its GHG emissions. By understanding the sources of its GHG emissions, the agency will identify specific efforts that will further reduce its emissions and track the success of these efforts over time.

Additionally, the agency has prepared the DDOT Climate Change Adaptation Plan to ensure that it can continue to provide reliable transportation facilities and services for residents, commuters, and businesses in the face of climate change impacts such as global warming, sea leave rise, and the increased frequency and intensity of extreme weather events.

As storm events over the past few years have shown, the impacts of extreme weather are a serious threat to the District’s transportation system and the community it serves. While the District has shown that it can deal with the ravages of these events, DDOT is committed to preparing a more resilient transportation system as outlined in the plan. Strategies outlined in the adaptation plan include: developing a better understanding of climate projections and the vulnerability of the transportation system, improving training and procedures on how to prepare and respond to events, establishing procedures for considering climate change when developing projects, and facilitating agency coordination.

Please contact Austina Casey at austina.casey@dc.gov or (202) 671-0494 with any questions or comments.

Goals

To understand how much greenhouse gas emissions are produced from DDOT facilities and operations.

And to also identify strategies that would help reduce the agency's contribution to climate change.

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